Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

Tag Archives: violations

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 16, 2017:

A closer look at the lawsuit that Chicago filed against Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week over his threat to withhold grant money reveals enough errors, inconsistencies, and just plain poor logic that might be enough for the judge to toss it, with prejudice.

The lawsuit that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had threatened over Session’s imposition of new conditions for receiving Bryne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) funds — including alerting the federal government when an illegal alien has been arrested and is about to be released — claimed that the threat of lost funding was unconstitutional, violated states’ rights, and threatened the city’s long-standing Welcoming City ordinance. The Welcoming City ordinance includes language that

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, August 14, 2017:

With the newest Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, Karen Handel, cosponsoring HR 38 last week, there are now 209 cosponsors of the national reciprocity bill. That bill was introduced in the House by Representative Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) in January with a companion bill being introduced in the Senate simultaneously by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). With Handel’s endorsement, that means passage by the House is just nine votes away.

The bill has gained some significant momentum from various sources, including municipalities such as New York City, which has jailed travelers there for violating its stringent anti-gun laws. A video interview by John Stossel on YouTube of two unsuspecting citizens caught in New York City’s web brought to light just how dangerous it is to travel there despite having followed all the rules.

Both Patricia Jordan and Avi Wolf were arrested for violating the city’s strict gun laws. Even though they both had called TSA to get current on rules about flying with firearms, and had followed those rules carefully, each spent a day and a night in a New York City jail, months of uncertainty until their cases were settled (they each plea-bargained to being a public nuisance), and between $15,000 and $17,000 each for attorneys’ fees. Stossel made the point that this is happening nearly on a weekly basis in the city.

Especially annoying was the response of the city’s district attorney to Stossel’s query about the severity of the punishment for such minor violations of the city’s rules: “We’re not going to apologize for enforcing our gun laws.”

Responded Stossel: “Give me a break! Prosecutors have discretion. They could be reasonable with these poor people who had no idea they violated New York’s strange laws. But New York politicians don’t want you to have a gun, so they will put you in jail to send everyone [else] a message.”

The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Affairs (NRAILA) is helping things along by making passage of the national reciprocity bill its No. 1 priority. It explained that in New York City:

Lawful possession requires a local license, which is not available to non-New York residents.… The Big Apple, in short, remains a Constitution-free zone as far as the right to keep and bear arms is concerned….

It is long past time for concealed carry reciprocity. Far too many good Americans have had their fundamental right to self-protection unfairly denied. If ruthless New York City politicians and bureaucrats “won’t apologize” for jailing and fleecing innocent travelers, the Congress likewise should unapologetically enforce the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, and restore Second Amendments rights to all.

Passage was urged by Conservative Daily:

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act would force states to treat concealed carry permits the same way they treat out-of-state driver’s licenses. If you are allowed to carry in one state, you are allowed to carry in all states.

Here at Conservative Daily, we support Constitutional Carry. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution should be the only “permit” a law-abiding American needs to defend himself in public.

Nationally known firearms expert and trainer Massad Ayoob weighed in on the matter on Sunday. He had just finished teaching a class in New Jersey, which he cryptically referred to as “operating behind enemy lines,” adding that “more than a dozen states now have followed the Vermont Model in which no permit is required to carry a loaded handgun concealed for protection in public.” But New Jersey “does not recognize carry permits from any other state.” As a result New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie has repeatedly granted relief to people such as Shaneen Allen, whose case made national headlines a few years ago. Allen crossed over from Pennsylvania into New Jersey, was subjected to a routine traffic stop that got ugly when she told the officer that she was carrying a firearm. The fact the she also had a Pennsylvania concealed carry permit didn’t matter. She was jailed and only saw the light of day after Christie intervened.

Jerry Henry, the executive director of Georgia Carry, weighed in on the bill as well, writing in Breitbart last week that state “laws should simply address carry licenses the way many other licenses are addressed. With a driver’s license issued in Georgia, I can drive my vehicle in any other state in this country … providing I follow the laws of the state I am in at the time. My marriage license is treated the same way.” Added Henry: “I have said for many years I should be able to carry anywhere a criminal carries.”

If the residents of Idaho want to have a state when you don’t need a permit to get a gun, I don’t think New York should tell Idaho how to manage its public safety, and I certainly don’t think the people of Idaho should tell New York City how to manage its public safety.

The trouble with that argument is that when Idahoans travel to New York City they don’t expect to be treated like common criminals, thrown in jail, and be forced to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to regain their freedom.

These arguments for national reciprocity are muting any discussion of the constitutionality of such a law. As constitutional lawyer Joe Wolverton wrote in The New American:

The problem plaguing Americans [is] looking to Washington, D.C. for permission to do that which is beyond their authority to rule….

Our Republic was not founded by men and women who looked to government for the green light for the exercise of timeless rights that have been enjoyed by their ancestors for years….

Promotion of a proposed federal law that would force states to recognize concealed carry permits issued by others states … would be unconstitutional.

The House Judiciary Committee will be holding hearings on the bill in the middle of September. While it’s expected to pass the House handily, it faces tougher sledding in the Senate where Democrats have promised a filibuster. Working for passage, however, is the political mathematics facing the Senate in 2018, where 24 Democrat Senate seats are open, including in many red states where national reciprocity is getting traction. As neither House Speaker Paul Ryan nor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seem interested in pushing the bill, it will have to have increasing public support for it to come to President Trump’s desk for signing.

And he will sign it. On September 18, 2015, Trump said:

The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving — which is a privilege, not a right — then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, August 7, 2017:

Nicolas Maduro, the communist thug who now rules Venezuela

Following the typical historical pattern of socialist takeovers, the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly (NCA) replaced the duly elected National Assembly on Friday, opening the ceremony with a speech from a Cuban communist guerrilla, followed by a speech reflecting a total disconnect from reality, and ending with giving the boot to a former Chavista who has in recent months become an embarrassment.

Reiterating the theme that the United States, and especially President Donald Trump, is responsible for Venezuela’s troubles, Fernando Soto Rojas, a Cuban-trained guerilla, opened the meeting of the NCA, shouting, “Yankee imperialism has not been able to stop the march of the people!”

The NCA then appointed Maduro’s foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez as head of the new body. Her total disconnect from reality was exposed by her claim that

Now that protesters have left the scene and Maduro has removed the primary thorn in his side, the socialist revolution begun by Marxist Hugo Chavez two decades ago now appears to be complete.

Before the new illegally elected National Constituent Assembly (NCA) took over on Friday, Maduro’s Prosecutor General, Luisa Ortega Diaz (shown), had become a thorn in his side. A hard-core Chavista, Diaz was appointed in 2007 and helped Hugo Chavez cement his position in place as Venezuela’s Marxist dictator. When her term ran out in 2014 she was appointed for another six-year term.

The sanctions imposed by the State Department on Venezuela’s Marxist dictator Nicolas Maduro and his regime are being carefully staged in to maximize the pain inflicted on Maduro and his cronies, while minimizing the impact on the citizens of the country.

Last week State imposed sanctions on 13 of Maduro’s top people, accusing them of various human rights violations and, as a result, freezing any assets they might have within American jurisdiction. Following Sunday’s fraudulent election, State imposed similar sanctions on Maduro himself, freezing any assets he might personally have in the United States.

Although it’s unknown just how much, if any, of Maduro’s personal wealth would be affected by those new sanctions, what is known is that they

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 12, 2017:

Official Congressional portrait of former Congresswoman Corrine Brown.

After 11 hours, the jury hearing the case against former Florida Democrat Representative Corrine Brown reached a verdict on Thursday: guilty on 18 out of 22 charges filed against her in federal court. The jury convicted her of conspiracy, five counts of mail fraud, seven counts of wire fraud, one count of scheming to conceal material facts in the case, one count of obstruction of justice, and three counts of tax fraud.

As The New American reported on the case last year, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Leslie Caldwell provided some of the details:

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, March 31, 2017:

Interstate 80 bridge over the Des Plaines River near Joliet, Illinois.

Joliet is a pleasant township of about 150,000 souls located on the Des Plaines River 40 miles southwest of Chicago. It describes itself as going through “a modern day renaissance” after having a near-death financial experience. Then-Mayor Tom Giarrante said three years ago this month:

I am proud to once again report that the State of the City continues to be … stable. As mayor, I will continue to work hard to keep Joliet financially sound by controlling our spending. It won’t be easy, and it won’t always be popular, but I will work to keep our checkbook balanced and we will not balance it by raising property taxes.

Three years earlier, the town had a $17 million deficit. It’s about to have another similar experience.

The Supreme Court last week paved the way. In Manuel v. City of Joliet, the court ruled unanimously that Elijah Manuel was free to bring a claim against the city based on Fourth Amendment violations conducted by Joliet police officers back in 2011. The opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, gave Manuel the go-ahead:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, March 30, 2017:

Elena Kagan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

The city of Joliet, Illinois, is about to find out just how costly its miscarriage of justice can be, now that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week that it cannot incarcerate an individual while he is awaiting trial, absent probable cause. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was succinct in delivering the court’s opinion:

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, March 20, 2017:

AG Jeff Sessions

Less well known, perhaps, than the Second Amendment are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, efforts by the founders to chain down the national government “from mischief.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to need a refresher course in them, to wit:

The Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”; and

The Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

What Sessions appears to have forgotten is that law enforcement is to be left largely up to the states, closer to the people themselves, and thus easier to control. Communists, on the other hand, have been pointed in their attacks on local law enforcement, which keeps getting in the way of installing a national police force.

Speaking in Richmond, Virginia last week, Sessions addressed a gathering of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials and expressed his concerns about the rising rate of violent crime in the US over the past two years. He doesn’t think it’s an anomaly:

It was a near thing: hard-left Muslim Keith Ellison had everything going for him: timing, momentum, and endorsements. He should have won in a walk, and he almost did.

The chairmanship for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was up for grabs in Atlanta on Saturday, and, for the first time in recent memory, it took two ballots to determine a winner. It was Perez over Ellison: 235-200.

Hard-left groups were incensed. This was the second time they had been shut out by the insiders, the first when Hillary allegedly sabotaged Bernie’s campaign for the presidency in the Democrat primary. Said Jim Dean, head of Howard Dean’s Democracy for America:

In re-introducing the ATF Elimination Act on Thursday, January 12, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) explained one of the primary reasons why: “The ATF is a scandal-ridden, largely duplicative agency that has been branded by failure and lacks a clear mission. It is plagued by backlogs, funding gaps, hiring challenges, and a lack of leadership.”

Not once did he explain the real reason the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF for short) should be eliminated:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, December 30, 2016:

In one of his last interviews with reporters, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said it was finally time, after 46 years, to leave Washington: “I did not ever think about leaving. I have mixed feelings. But the way the political races have turned out, I can’t wait to get out of here,” he declared.

Those tracking his dismal political performance over 23 terms in Washington, along with his breathtaking moral and ethical lapses and failures, no doubt feel the same way. A reporter with the Washington Times summed up his career nicely:

On Wednesday Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warned Donald Trump to keep his hands off the nuclear deal he and Secretary of State John Kerry made last year:

Every U.S. president has to understand the realities of today’s world. The most important thing is that the future U.S president sticks to agreements.

Whether Trump agrees with Zarif, or not, will likely be among the very first decisions he’ll be forced to make in January. During his campaign Trump repeatedly called the Iran nuclear deal “the worst deal ever negotiated,” a “disaster,” and said that it could lead to a “nuclear holocaust.” In March he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.”

As Janet Reno formally ended her public career following her failure to win a primary for governor of Florida in 2002, she quoted George Washington about her legacy: “If I were to write all that down I might be reduced to tears. I would prefer to drift on down the stream of life and let history make the judgment.”

Her stream of life ended on Monday at age 78 when she passed away following complications from Parkinson’s disease. History will remember her for one thing:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, August 29, 2016:

Brazil’s upper house will hear testimonies on Monday from eight of President Dilma Rousseff character witnesses in her last-ditch stand to stave off what appears to be inevitable: a senate vote impeaching her and removing her from office.

After the character witnesses speak, Rousseff will then follow with a 30-minute speech, touting her past successes, her experience, and her ties to the once-popular President Lula da Silva, who preceded her in office. She will also repeat her claims that

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 11, 2016:

Official Congressional portrait of Congresswoman Corrine Brown.

Representing Florida’s Fifth Congressional District for nearly a quarter of a century, Congresswoman Corrine Brown has had numerous brushes with the law, both inside and outside Congress. On Friday her indictment on 24 charges of milking her charity is likely to end her legislative career permanently.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, provided some of the details:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, June 27, 2016:

Official House Photo of Congressman Chaka Fattah, from Pennsylvania’s 2nd district

Within days of each other, two House Democrats — one a petty thief, the other a big-time plunderer — have had to account for their unethical behaviors. The first was forced to resign from office; the other announced his intention to retire.

Chaka Fattah, whose birth name is Arthur Davenport, represented Pennsylvania’s Second District (mostly Philadelphia and its environs) from 1995 until Thursday, June 23 when he was forced to resign. It wasn’t his idea. Fattah wanted to stay in office until the day before his sentencing on October 4, milking his position for every last penny.

A year ago July, he and four of his associates were indicted on federal charges for

In less than three weeks, the new administration of Brazil’s interim president, Michel Temer (shown, on the left), is already coming unraveled. On Sunday a secretly recorded audio tape was played by a local popular TV station of a conversation between the head of Temer’s newly created Ministry of Transparency, Supervision and Control, Fabiano Silveira, and Senate President Renan Calheiros. On the tape Silveira was giving Calheiros legal advice on how to avoid prosecution in the Petrobras scandal investigation called Operation Car Wash.

On Monday Silveira resigned his position following public protests that included soaping the windows of his office to indicate that Temer’s appointee needed a good cleansing.